Une Peur De Craindre
by MelaRossa
Summary: A series of unrelated drabbles of the many fears and phobias of the characters of Death Note. Some funny, some romantic, and some just plain cruel. Contains some pairings of various sorts.
1. Arachnophobia

**Hello!**

**So, this idea came to me one evening that a series of bizarre phobias would make an interesting (but poorly written, albeit,) fanfiction. Some may be crackfics, some may be romantic, most will probably be depressing, haha!**

**I will warn you that some of these short tidbits will contain yaoi, or traces of it. I'll put a warning at the top so you can skip it if it's a pairing you don't like, though.**

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><strong>I apologize for my poor writing skills, I'm still incredibly new to creative writing. Please forgive me. Apologies for a long intro!<strong>

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

**Characters: L, task-force members.**

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><strong>Warning: Contains intended OOC-ness.<strong>

"...And when we meet," the synthetic voice played out, the only sound in the hotel room other than the stifled breathing of the ever-anxious Japanese males (for the present detective had all but held his breathe, and had been holding it for quite some time), "We can confirm out identities by showing each other our Shinigami." the continuation of the sentence coincided with the latter sentence to cease, as the detective inhaled sharply in a sudden gasp.

"Shinigami?" Chief Yagami and task-memebr Matsuda exclaimed in union, but the detective's ears had failed to allow the word to correctly be received by his brain.

"Ah... _Ahhhhhhh—Ghn!_" He screamed, wailing his arms into the air in horror, no attempt at reserving any dignity or respect (if anyone still held it for him,) in his outburst of sheer _terror, _before losing his sense of balance, his armchair plummeting to the ground- taking him with it.

_Thump._

"Ryuzaki!" Aiziwa crouched to the floor, leaning towards the petrified man, "Are you alright?"

"S-.. S-.." The fallen genius stammered.

"T-That's impossible!" Matsuda interjected.

"Obviously they don't exist." Aiziwa continued.

"It.." L tried again, doing all he could to retain his calm and indifferent attitude.

"It was _huge_..."

"...Er, what?"

"That spider! Dear God, didn't you see it? It must have been the size of my fist, it-" A sudden yelp cut the raven short, fearing that he had just seen the son of a bitch run across the carpet.

"...Spider?"

L held up his fist and pointed to it, his eyes wide.

"...Spider." Matsuda repeated, blankly.

"Ryuzaki, you do realise Kira is-"

"Nevermind that! We need newspapers, encyclopedias, and a collect-" Madly scrabbling up off the floor, the ever-sugar-craving "man" froze when witnessing the awkward expressions of the rest of the room's occupants.

"...Ryuza...ki..." This from the 18-year-old genius, Light Yagami, who had, until now, been perfectly silent and generally uncaring for the arachnophobiac. "Don't... move..." He leaned over, heading towards the fallen armchair behind the mildly-hysterical L.

"It's there... isn't it... It's... behind me..."

"..Just don't move, I-"

Promptly throwing a lamp at the chair and running behind Matsuda proved fruitless in killing the beast, but effective in knocking Light out of the way and into Mogi's arms in such a fashion that would easily have sent his future girlfriend into spasms.

The ordeal continued for another 2 hours and 18 minutes, until the spider was successfully captured and squished to death by L repeatedly beating the poor creature in with Light's shoe.

He made it clear he had no intentions of removing the shoe from the teenager's foot before doing so.

Chest heaving, he rose to his feet, hair acting as a curtain to conceal his face.

"We... Never speak of this incident again..."

The group nodded.

Especially the brunet, who never again wanted to be grabbed by his leg and throw to the floor by a panting man again.

Ever.

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><p><p>

**Any reviews are thanked for, no matter what.**

**(And thank you for reading ^^ )**


	2. Caligynephobia

**Oh, I'd just like to mention I really don't mean to offend anyone with these phobias. I really only made this 'fic to amuse, not to insult anyone. I'm so incredibly sorry if you happen to have anything mentioned here. X**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

The hotel doors clicked open with a light "thmp" from behind, followed by the sounds of two members casually walking in. The routine was, as always, going to be the same. They would enter, Matsuda would be unnecessarily happy to see them despite the fact they came here for at least half the days of the week. He would bounce up, rapidly and poorly explain the current progress in the Kira Case ("We almost thought there was a connection, I mean, it was really close, and I was so sure that there would be! But there isn't. Still, we were _so close_ to having a lead!"), rush into the kitchen to provide endless cups of coffee, and then proceed to thoroughly annoy just about anyone he could by opening his mouth and making noises in an attempt of communicating.

Today's ritual was soon interrupted, however.

"Hey, good morning you G-_uaiiiahhhhss!_"

In horror, Matsuda threw himself down onto the floor, imitating an expression of the world's greatest detective after a surprise attack from an arachnid. In attempt to hide himself, he flung himself into the lap of the closest team member, who also happened to be the largest and therefore most efficient for protecting him for being eaten alive or something; Mogi, gripping his head in his hands in the standard "I'm going to die!" position.

The newly entered duo, Light and his father, sprung backwards in shock of the wailing.

"Wha-? Matsuda? What the hell? What's wrong?" Surprisingly, for once, Light's concern was genuine. First he was concerned that something was wrong with with appearance upon entering the building, (had the wind blown his hair back from the walk to the hotel room?..It wasn't even windy outside!) and secondly he was concerned for the state of his eardrums, which had not appreciated that a small girl's voice had been transferred into the body of a fully grown adult male.

A wide pair of eyes peeked up from Mogi's chest at the sound of Light's voice.

"L-Light..? Is... is that you?"

The teenager tensed. Oh God, what if he had _something on his face_?

"Y-Yeah..."

At that, Matsuda fell from Mogi's knees and to the floor, rubbing the back of his skull and laughing, incredibly awkwardly.

"Aw, man, Light, you scared me! Sorry... You know I have Caligynephobia, and I just saw you and... Well I wasn't looking properly, you know? Uhm... Pretty funny, now I think about it.. ha... ha..."

The _brunette_'s eyes narrowed and blazed, wildly, counting the many ways he could assassinate the disgrace of a man with his bare hands and get away with it. After a few moments, Light sighed, feeling deflated.

"Fucking pink shirt."

**Caligynephobia – Fear of beautiful women.**

**Don't really know what else I can say to that, actually.**

**Reviews are loved.**


	3. Arachibutyrophobia

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

Humans require food.

This is a fact.

Light Yagami was human.

This also is a fact.

Unsurprisingly, this combination of facts equalled that Light Yagami required food to live.

However, Light was chained to a panda.

This proved to be a problem, as the simplest tasks often resulted in a thoroughly-destroyed kitchen when attempting to prepare a meal with a man with the common sense of, in the opinion of the teenager, a banana skin.

Anything that required cooking would become source of a, _usually_ relatively small, house fire. After the third shirt that ended with a blackened hole through the cuff, Light admitted defeat in being unable to eat real food again until he was free of the bonds of the freak-of-nature he had somehow acquired on his wrist.

The only options were starvation, or keeping things so ridiculously easy a child could manage without difficulty.

_'Putting Ryuzaki on the same level as a child seems a little insulting, though. Most children aren't that stupid.' _Smirking to himself, Light reached for a loaf of bread out of the fridge.

"I will not have my eyebrows burned off." He announced.

"That incident was entirely your own doing, and I hold you completely responsible."

The teenager scowled. "And what about the other four?" He slammed the loaf onto the table. Not today. Today would be a fire-free lunch, dammit!

"Until you have given up on the idea of roasting me, I shall be eating sandwiches. Everyday. Possibly for every meal if you manage to repeat your action of burning _cornflakes_."

"Light-kun, we agreed _never to discuss that again_." The raven shuddered and pulled himself into a tight bundle.

Fear danced across the pair of honey-brown eyes before dismissing it to continue to prepare something edible. This proved to be a task, as most of the cupboards seemed to hold an eternal supply of sugar with the occasional jar of coffee thrown in for good measure. The closest thing to success was a small, clear jar with a red lid, dusted and abandoned to the back of the lowest shelf.

_'Victory!'_ Light mentally cheered, holding the jar of peanut butter in the air in all it's glory, taking a moment to stop and relish how depressing his life had become.

The detective caught a glimpse of the label from his hunched position at the table. He leaned over to the boy. "Light-kun?"

_'Here it comes.' _"What?" Was it somehow possible to accuse him for mass-homicide for eating crushed nuts? Would Ryuzaki even stoop that low?

Stupid question.

"I was just going to enquire if Light-kun had ever tried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before?"

Odd. Unless you know L, anyway. Normal?

Caught slightly off-guard be a sentence that didn't end in "Kira", Light shrugged. "Can't say I have. Jam is too sweet for my taste."

"Oh? Raspberry and blackcurrant jam is known for it's more bitter taste. You should try it."

"...Uh.. Okay?" Although weirded out as the panda-man crawled into one of the lower cupboards, it was probably too late to confess that he hadn't actually been accepting the offer to try it. Well, whatever. Maybe choking would encourage him to accept that not everybody loved sweets enough to live on them.

An unfortunately familiar cheery hum interrupted the brunet's train of thought, as Matsuda half-skipped into the kitchen. Nothing particularly good had happened to perk the man's mood. It was just Tuesday again. Yay.

"Hey Ryuzaki, Li- …."

His mouth failed to close, giving him that perfect "fish-out-of-water-gawk".

"What in God's name were you _doing_?" Matsuda half screamed, grabbing Light's shirt collar and attempting- and failing, miserably, at lifting him off the ground.

"Wha-?"

The deranged man shook the boy repeatedly, until the room became fuzzy, dropping him down onto with such a force that caused him to fall into the counter, head spinning wildly.

"You're... You're insane! Crazy! I'll never understand you, Light! Don't you know what you're doing?" He continued to call out, anger and sorrow mixed together equally in his voice like an emotion-cocktail.

The pain of the moment suddenly hitting, Matsuda fled from the scene, eyes moist and threatening to spill drops of salty water into his palms.

Satisfied that the babbling maniac was out of ear-shot, Light pulled himself off and flicked off some invisible dust. "...What the fuck just happened?"

L swallowed, a little loudly, from behind. "I believe Matsuda-san has arachibutyrophobia." He blankly deduced, as if it were a statement one would explain daily, and as if it was relatively obvious already.

"What's- Jesus Christ, Ryuzaki! Are you eating that jam with your fingers or your face?"

The pair of wide, onyx eyes slid down to the half-empty jar, then to his fingers, before scooping another handful of jam into his mouth, as if to demonstrate to the stunned Kira-suspect.

"Both."

"...I have decided to starve to death. You may not attempt to stop me."

"Is it bec-"

"No. No, I am not Kira."

**Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of Peanut Butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.**

**P.S. Yes, this chapter was made this length only because it gave me an opportunity to get a BB reference in there. Otherwise, a paragraph would have sufficed. Because I'm that much of an addict.**

**Reviews are adored, please and thank you.**


	4. Atychiphobia

**I'd actually intended on this being a serious and dramatic 'fic. Where did all the Crackfics come from?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

Most humans, as much as they may deny it, fear death.

Not when casually asked during a social gathering. When you're calm, it doesn't sound scary at all.

But when gasping for air and feeling blood pouring out of freshly-made gapes in your body, it's difficult to not find it terrifying. Only strong people can honestly say, as the adrenaline pumps through their body and their heart speeds into double pace, that they aren't afraid.

Light was strong.

Of course he was strong. Gods aren't weak. Mass-murderer's aren't weak, at least when they're content with what they're doing. He was never weak, not from the day he was born.

He wasn't afraid.

When picking up the Death Note all those years ago, he had been ready. When pressing the pen down to the page to curve the letter's of the first name, he had been ready. When he had screamed out as he crashed to the ground upon seeing Ryuk for the first time, he had been ready. Albeit a little startled.

You don't declare yourself God of the new world if you aren't willing to die for that title. A title he only held for those short years...

Such a pity. There was so much he could have done. So much more to be _achieved_.

But it wasn't to be.

The name he had worked so hard for was to be stripped from him.

All those people, _dead_. And for what? Dying on a dirtied staircase?

_Yes_, it was for a better world. _Yes_, it was to cleanse the world of evil.

But why was it to fall apart so quickly?

Wasn't the entire world's peace enough to prove that Kira was _righteous_?

Why were there still people who believed the innocent living in fear for no reason was better than those who deserved punishment dying?

It didn't make _sense_.

Light's chest heaved again, breathing becoming more painful with each gasp.

_'This wasn't meant to happen.'_

The beating of his chest pounded heavier, harder than before. Each movement felt like knives, stabbing the inside of his chest, desperately trying to burst free.

_'It wasn't supposed to end like this.'_

Yet, he had known it. He had felt it from the beginning. That this was the only way it could be. That this was the only possible ending.

And it terrified him.

_Thirty-seven..._

But not the death. In any other case, dying would have come as a relief.

_Thirty-eight..._

Light Yagami did not fear death.

_Thirty-nine..._

Dying wasn't a problem, and never had been.

_Fourty._

Ironic, really. That the final thing to kill him would be the same murdering-method he had used countless times. A taste of his own, disgusting medicine. His signature move, dealt by a God.

But this time a God of Death.

_'I don't want to lose.'_

Had it not been for the atychiphobia, the death might had been amusing for more than one tired God.

But maybe it was nice to know it would be the last time he would have to endure defeat.

**Atychiphobia – Fear of Failing.**

**Reviews couldn't be more appreciated, I assure you! Thank you for reading. x**


	5. Erotophobia

**Discalimer: I don't own Death Note.**

**Warning: Er... Mentioned sex and homosexuality?**

"Ryuuuzaaakiiii~!"

Said man mentally cringed at the high toned squeal of his alias, debating whether or not to alter it to something physically impossible to make so _cutsie_. It was not appreciated to hear imaginary hearts after one has been addressed. Bless the girl, she really did try, but making up for her lack of intelligence with adorability really was a losing battle.

...Adorability?

Shit! Her mind-numbingness was spreading like a horrible, low-IQ plague!

"Yes, Amane-san?" L casually responded, ignoring his inner self's screams of _"Evacuate! Evacuate before she spreads the disease!"_

The supposed _woman_ leaned down, placing her head level with the detective's. "I need help getting the definition of something." She gave a cheery smile, shiny lip gloss catching the light and making her mouth look slightly huge from where the two were positioned. The insomniac was slightly concerned that she would eat him.

"Oh." L spun around in his swivel chair with more force than intended, grabbing onto the table to stop himself from twirling 360 degrees. "Look it up."

"I couldn't find a dictionary."

…

It probably wasn't her fault. It's hard to look for something you've never seen before.

"I meant on one of the computers? You're welcome to use the one in your apartment, you are aware? Although we will be observing everything you search..."

"Pervert." _'How is that e-' _"I can't, anyway."

"And why is that?" Two pale fingers were awkwardly dancing across the keyboard, tapping with a speed most would struggle with when using ten.

"All I'm getting is pornography."

Although every window in the building was firmly sealed, the raven swore he felt a gust of wind.

_'I wonder if Matsuda and Amane carry the same disease? Or is it different? If they hang around together, will they catch each other's stupidity and cause a mutation?...Either way, it may be sensible to dispose of them both. Light will have to stand in as the new Matsuda.'_

"...It's called Erotophobia." She continued after a lack of reply.

L wrapped a hand around his coffee mug and lifted it to his lips, taking a slow sip to keep the girl in suspense before casually questioning, "Why do you ask?".

The girl shrugged her small, delicate shoulders and flipped a lock of hair back, coolly. "Lightkins says he has it. I wanted to know what it was."

Ah, of course. Why else would the blonde be speaking to him if it wasn't concerning her _Lightkins_

She stared at him, waiting impatiently for the description, while he occasionally glanced in her general direction, acting as if he was unsure of what she wanted for no other reason than to provoke her for his own personal amusement.

"_Well_?"

"Yes?" He questioned, innocently.

"Ryuzaki! Tell me what it is! God, you could have explained it three times by now..." The last part was spoken in what the model assumed to be a whisper. As far as anyone in the vicinity other than herself was aware, it was the exact same level of volume, but with a slightly deeper tone. Not necessarily a bad thing considering the range of high pitched squeals she used for talking normally.

L cocked his head to the side. "Erotophobia is a phobia of sexual relations, Amane-san." His voice was cold and dead as ever, making him pronounce the words 'Sexual relations' extra uncomfortable for everyone in earshot.

Her expression was a picture of embarrassment, shock, and horror. She emitted a sharp gasp, covering her mouth with her feminine fingers, taking a step backwards in surprise. However, her distress quickly turned to one of rage, supposedly blaming the detective for her boyfriend's fear of natural human pleasures. She proceeded to spin his chair around, open out her palm, and strike the insomniac across the cheek with enough force to leave a reddened mark for the rest of the day, making a satisfying (except for the receiver) _'Smack!' _in the process.

Her black heels clopping against the floor, loudly and angrily, she stormed towards the exit, supposedly to confront her beloved erotophobiac.

_'How curious.' _L touched his assaulted (furiously stinging) cheek, unsure of what to do with the injury. She seemed to get agitated excessively easily with the bearer of bad news. Perhaps that could be used to his advantage to prevent the deadly virus from infecting him?

"Miss Amane! Please wait!"

He rose to his feet, slouching over so much that it did little for increasing his height from the previous curled-ball-position he had been maintaining.

She flicked her head around, hair flying over her shoulder in a motion similar to that from a stereotypical cheesy hair-product commercial (should the actress have been furious and ready to stab the producer in the eye with his own cake-fork), giving a snappy _"What?"._

The social retard ignored the small feeling in his stomach telling him it would end badly. "I have an announcement to make."

From across the room, Chief Yagami made his way over, carrying a fresh mug of coffee from the kitchen. How well-timed! He may have missed what the detective had to say if he had been any longer. He had been distracted on his way in by a hiding and quivering Matsuda. The youngest NPA officer had been peeping from behind the door, eyes and nose peeking through a crack, convinced that "Shit is about to go down." The elder man shrugged it off, growing used to the feelings of impending doom he would often experience on most frequent occasions.

"Yes, Ryuzaki?" Soichiro smiled in a tired, charming sort of way. Though half of it was hidden by his ever-growing moustache that he had been unable to cut properly for at least two hours due to dedication to the case. How his son went through weeks of confinement without so much as a stubble was beyond him. But that was beyond the point.

L's onyx eyes locked with Misa's from across the room.

"Light-kun is not erotophobic."

"...Excuse me?" The boy-in-question's father spluttered out, choking on his beverage.

"He isn't?" Her chipmunk-voice rose to full throttle, piercing multiple sets of ears in excitement.

That lie had been fairly obvious. He was _Light-Freaking-Yagami_. L could not ignore witnessing the boy viewing adult magazines more than a few times, and though he felt reluctant to share his proof with her for the safety of being accused once more of being a pervert and for the concern of his rapidly swelling face, the boy's girlfriend had a right to know he was lying to her face her for an excuse _not_ to express his (lack of) love for her.

Also, it would thoroughly piss the teenager off, which would be _hilarious_.

"No." L continued, the thrilled Misa practically bouncing at his feet.

"No, he's just gay."

…

He then sat down on his spinny-chair with knees raised to his chest, feeling strangely contented with his honesty and good-heartedness, and continued his work as if the event had never occurred at all.

**Thank you for reading, and please feel free to review or not at your leisure. No matter what it is you have to say, I'm incredibly thankful to hear your voicing.**


	6. Aichmophobia

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. If I did, this would probably have been the way Ukita died.**

Hunched, sloppy, plain _awkward_. The man in front of the police force seemed more like one of the criminals they arrested than the world's greatest detective. Despite his introduction of "I am L.", the five found themselves momentarily doubting it before forcing the claim to be accepted.

"He's not like I thought he'd be..." Matsuda shyly mumbled to himself, more than a little disappointed at a lack of pipe, moustache, and English-Victorian-style clothing. Also, L did not once call any one them "Good chap" or "Old Bean", which should have been an offence in itself.

"I'm Yagami of the NPA." Soichiro Yagami held up his badge, shortly followed by four others.

"Uh.. Matsuda."

"I'm Aiziwa."

"Mogi."

"Ukita." The last man, extremely unsure of the situation after seeing the "detective", found himself grow more and more uneasy with that stare he was receiving. Those eyes... God, it was as if he was having his soul removed through his face. Trying to remain calm, Ukita gulped, heavily, feeling the sweat build on his forehead, the moist sensation not helping cool his impending sense of danger, as if sensing something awful was about to happen. He couldn't explain it, he just... Felt it. Sensed a feeling of doom. But it wasn't actually the _eyes_ that scared him. No, the eyes weren't a problem. They were fine, albeit extremely wide, tired, and slightly perverted-looking. The object of his distress was instantly clear to the man. It was just a few inches from the blackened depth of the pools of darkness that were embedded in the raven's face.

Soichiro spoke up again, the sound of his calm proving to be more distressing.

"I'm sorry we're late. Currently, the five of us are-"

And that was when everything went wrong. For Ukita, everything fell apart then and there. His heart pounded in a way he'd never experienced before, pain and fear overloading him. The shock burned into him, although he had been trying to prepare himself, he just hadn't been able to imagine such a dramatic movement. With L's call of "Bang!", his hand raised and finger pointed outwards, Ukita felt his vision blurring before his eyes, unable to even breathe any more. His ears filled with a buzzing, and quickly, he was overtaken by the creeping darkness.

"If I were Kira, you'd be dead, Mr Soichiro Yagami, Chief of the-"

Promptly cut off from the _'Thud!' _as the officer hit the floor, unconscious, the room's occupants stared down at the fainted man.

"..."

Matsuda rubbed the back of his neck.

"Er... I think you missed."

One uncomfortable arrest and an extremely unpleasant jail experience later, L gained at eternal grudge with Ukita for not making his severe Aichmophobia more well-known.

**Aichmophobia - The morbid fear of sharp things, such as pencils, needles, knives, or a pointing finger.**

**Reviews are loved, thank you~**


	7. Eisoptrophobia

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

It was ridiculous, really. Of course he was being silly. Silly, silly, silly. Almost comical, really. Humorous.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Lawliet was very good at being a joker, even though he didn't believe it himself. He thought he was so serious all the time. But this was his best joke yet! So, so funny.

The red started rolling off his hands. Pretty, in the light. Shiny and bright. A healthy colour, too. He stared at it through the glass. The figure in the mirror stared back at the bloodied, shaking mess.

He laughed.

Kyahahahaha.

Poor L. So lonely. So desperate to forget. Move on. What a pity. Anyone would think the memory upset him. That it hurt him. What hurt? It was his own doing, after all. Too late to change it now. They were dead and rotten, now. All of them.

Them?

Believe Bridesmaid. Quarter Queen. Backyard Bottomslash.

All dead, because of him.

That wasn't the funny part, though. That they were dead. That it still sent shivers up his spine to hear their names. No, no.

The funny part was that he still believed he hadn't been the one to kill them!

Oh, Lawliet! Such a comedian! To think that someone other had sent the knife to their throats? That some other being had crushed the eyes of that little thirteen-year-old girl? That it wasn't the great and powerful detective to saw off the limbs of a woman, just for his own personal gain?

A chunk of mirror gave a satisfying crunch under the pressure of the bloodied fist; more beads of crimson welled up against the previously porcelain skin, now smeared in a red dye.

Nonsense. It was just nonsense.

Of course L had been the one to bring them their deaths. Who else could have done it, after all? An intimidation? An alternative? A copy?

His _Back-up_?

The hunched body flung himself against the wall of the room, pressing himself against the pure white of the bathroom tiles, feeling the cold against his cheek. He restrained his right hand from clawing, desperately, at his own eyes with the left. Shards of mirror forced themselves into his flesh, deeper, with the growing pressure he forced through his palm. The knuckles and fingers strained below the dye, secretly white beneath their red exterior.

He'd always been bad at self-control. Wanting to press his face into the wall, or hide his eyes into his knees. But it never worked. His eyelids would fly open, and once again he would stare at his disgusting, hideous reflection:

The messy hair, the pale face, the baggy clothes, the eternally exhausted expression...

The red eyes staring back at him from inside the mirror.

_'No,' _He would try to assure himself, _'Not my eyes at all. Not mine, but his eyes.'_

But, weren't they?

Did the eyes of the Reapers' not belong to him as much as his Back-up, or as the Gods of Death themselves?

Who was to the say, despite their separate bodies, _useless bags of flesh and blood that they were_, they did not share their existences? Their identities? Was there a single difference between them?

_'Yes. We aren't the same. We're equal. He is B, and I am L. Alike, similar, but not the same.'_

No. Liar.

_'Telling yourself that some other person was responsible just to keep up the innocent appearance. Blaming your successor so you don't have to accept than you're the reason they're dead. It's disgusting.'_

Blood entangled with his raven hair as L tugged at his skull, silently praying to remove the voice from his mind and to be free from his accusations.

He could hear the shouting from outside the door. The petrified voice that would always come to rescue the child from his nightmares.

Was it depressing that the detective, now into his twenties, was still been afraid of the big, bad monster hiding under his bed?

Monsters are made to be frightening. That's why they're monsters.

Especially the lying monsters. They tend to be the most difficult.

He would know, after all. Having been eaten by one.

Being one himself.

"_L! L, are you still in there?" _Quilish.

The man in question looked around the room, blankly. The mirror had been shattered and discarded across the room, thousands of pieces reflecting his face and staring back with wild, childishly delighted expressions.

"I wonder if he is." He, unknown by which name to call himself, considered. "Perhaps he is still here, somewhere, lost in the shards. Or maybe he never existed at all?" The man felt doubtful, but not uncertain of the life of L. Somewhere, though not positively, he may still be hiding. It was difficult to tell. Was the figure in the mirror a fiction, or reality?

Or was he now somewhere trapped between?

Both L and B.

Lawliet and Birthday.

Original and Back-up.

For now, as the Lost remained consumed and overtaken by the reflection in the mirror, the man would have to obtain a new name.

A name that was both the man that he was, and the man that burned to the ground.

The name would be heavy with burdens, so strong that the weight would ache his back. A sour, bitter name, that would be only diluted by endless sugar and sweet-tasting substances. A name stolen from his own copy, finally accepted onto the original.

Ryuzaki dragged himself up off the ground, walking on the mirror as he moved, and headed towards the door, his hand still dripping blood down his slender, bony fingers.

**Eisoptrophobia – Fear of Mirrors.**

**I would like to dedicate this A/N to my hamster, Balthazar Beltane, who sat perfectly still on my lap while I was writing this. B.B. is a good little hamster.**

**Thank you very much for reading!**


	8. Atelophobia

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.**

_Ignorant._

All of them. They were all so ignorant. It was pathetic.

Light rested his head against the frame of the French-doors, staring over the roof-tops of his neighbours and at the setting sun, watching as the sky turned a golden orange. The cold metal pressed through his auburn, directly against his skin, uncomfortably.

There wasn't another word for it. They all knew how it was. Every single one of them knew how it was.

Disgusting animals. They were happy to bask in this dirty, rotting world.

He moved his head, not enjoying the indenting feeling in his skull from the door-frame.

Why was it so hard for them to get it? It wasn't possible to blame it all on intelligence, or rather, _the lack of. _This had nothing to do with that. This was just plain denial. Refusal the believe that this revolting _thing_ that they all called "their world" was nothing more than a pile of shit that homed billions of flies, crawling around the waste like it was something precious; something to be satisfied with!

_No._

It wasn't good enough, to say it in all honesty.

It wasn't good enough for anything.

This world was nothing but a failure. It had so much potential, but those flies always had to screw it all up.

It was flawed. It was broken. It was dead and _rotting._

How were they supposed to survive in a world filled with this fear and injustice? Were they supposed to be _happy_ with what they had? Like that would cut it! "Adequate" was a weak way of saying "imperfect", and "imperfection" was just a word for "failure".

The boy's nails dug into his wall, grasping until his hands turned white, practically furious. No, no he _was_ furious. What the hell was this? This failed world, that nobody cared enough to change. Sure, they all lied, "_making a difference_" every day of their lives, like they really believed the poor attempts of change would actually occur and fix everything if they just kept on repeating and repeating a broken pattern, expecting the flaws to just straighten out.

But... Wait...

No, the people of the world were doing exactly what they had to do. They were doing everything right.

Because they were all flawed, broken, and imperfect. It wasn't the world's fault, nothing more than a ball of land and water. It was the _people_ that were the disasters. The _people_ were the disgusting animals. They were all born _dead_, and every day they spent being _dead_ was corrupting more and more, until they finally crumpled to the floor and were taken away. They come, they wreck, then they leave as if that's all they had ever come for.

How had they come this far without even trying to heal the world? Living in a broken world wasn't good enough! It had to be fixed! Everyone had to be fixed! To be edited, to be purified! The scum wasn't necessary, so why was it still there? The burdens had to be removed, no matter what the cost!

The colour of the sky reflected in Light's eyes, practically glowing. The calm, natural beauty of the scene was incredibly photogenic, untouched, _flawless_. The wind blew against Light's hair as he leaned out, the sound of the wind whistling in his ears, calling out to him, "Perfection, perfection". He lowered his long eye lashes, feeling the cool against his cheek, listening to the wind's plea.

_He had to do it._

No one else could do it.

There was only him. The last one to see how the scum of the world had overtaken. The only one to cleanse the world of the filth and flaws.

Slowly, the boy felt a smile creeping onto his lips.

Light Yagami would perfect this world. No matter what it took.

**Atelophobia – Fear of imperfection.**

**Thank you for reading!**


End file.
